We have been very happy with our dual processors, particularly because
we get to do several things simultaneously. However, given the
increasing size of data sets and memory bottlenecks that come with a
32-bit machine, I would recommend purchasing a 64 bit processor with
lots of memory. Matlab 7.1 has support for 64 bit machines.
Satra
--
Satrajit Ghosh
Postdoctoral Associate
Speech Communications Group
Research Lab of Electronics, MIT
On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 11:42:42 +0000, Cinly Ooi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Volkmar Glauche wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, Carolyn L. Fort wrote:
> >
> >> I'm purchasing a Linux workstation that will be devoted to fMRI
> >> processing/analysis and we'll primarily be running SPM (though AFNI,
> >> FSL and other packages will be loaded as well). I'm wondering whether
> >> SPM performs better on a dual processor or if sufficient speed (between
> >> 2.8 - 3.2 GB) on a single processor will suffice.
> >
> >
> > Matlab (and therefore SPM) will not make explicit use of a 2nd processor,
> > but it is recommended if you want to use the workstation interactively
> > while an analysis is running.
>
> Having a High speed processor waiting for interactive command is a bit
> of a waste. I would prefer to take the penalty of sluggish workstation
> response by running two analysis process on dual processor.
>
> Alternative is to get a single processor and hyperthread it. But
> analysis speed can be slower, assuming that Data access (Ethernet/Hard
> Disk/Cache) is not a limitting factor. May be dual processors,
> hyperthread to 4 processors is a better proposition (3 analysis + 1
> workstation activity). Unfortunately you cannot hyperthread only one
> processor in a dual processors config.
>
> Cinly
>
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